ch; but having his pockets well lined, and being of a generous
and social disposition, he made a great feast on Christmas eve, to
which he invited certain friends of his mother, Nelly Hind among
them, and some who had been 'prentices at the same time as himself.

And in the height of their entertainment, good ale flowing very
freely, Joe, usually the most abstemious of tars, was a little
overtaken by the liquor he had drunk, and, with no other object
than to heighten my reputation, must needs tell how I had ventured
into the jaws of death (so he put it) to save the man of all others
who had done me the most ill. And next day Nelly Hind meets
Mistress Vetch at the church door and pours the whole tale into her
ears; and by and by Joe comes himself with a very doleful
countenance and begs Mistress Vetch not to let her husband know,
and very humbly asks my pardon, vowing not to drink more than a
quart in future even though the Queen should bid him do otherwise.

But Mistress Vetch bore an old grudge against Cyrus for the tricks
he had played on me, and the trouble he had brought on the lawyer,
forgetting, good soul, that but for this same trouble she would
still have been (so far as one can tell), Becky Pennyquick and a
widow. She declared to me that she would not have the matter hidden
up, quoting against me the Bible text that says a candle is not put
under a bushel, but set on a candlestick to give light to the whole
house. And so that the light might dazzle as many as possible, she
invited a dozen neighbors to dinner on Boxing Day and sprung the
story on poor Mr. Vetch as he sat at the head of his own table.
('Tis marvelous what strange ineptitudes mar the characters of
excellent good folk.)

Luckily our good friend Captain Galsworthy was among the guests. He
ever treated poor Becky with a sort of good-humored tolerance, and
now, perceiving the shadow that crossed the lawyer's face, he broke
in upon the dame's loquacity with a tremendous tirade against the
captains who had behaved so treacherously towards Mr. Benbow (the
story of whose last fight he had already drunk in from my lips).

"How can you wonder at it," he cried, "when you remember the
covetous spirit that overspread the kingdom before Dutch William
came to rule us--when men perfectly scrambled for the revenues of
the crown, and made their private fortunes out of the nation's
treasure! 'Tis a matter of years, ay, generations, to undo all the
mischief that